a celebration

Twelfth Night

Twelfth Night is mentioned only briefly in The New Pagans’ Handbook. However, the initial notice of the Regency (‘First Details of a New Religious Society’) that was published in Pentagram at Candlemas 1967 lists it among the major festivals and the Regency celebrated it every year on 6th January.

In the Yule section of the Handbook Ron says of Twelfth Night: ‘This day celebrates the coming to power of the new Sun God and the final departure of the old, who as Father Christmas or the Fool, had presided over the festivities.’

The first Regency Twelfth Night ceremony took place on 6th January 1967. Ron drafted an outline ‘order of ceremony’ for it on blank pages in his desk diary for 1966, which also contains a diagram and a sketch relating to the set up for the ceremony.

Here is the sketch: it shows a goddess figurine with arms raised in front of three candles and a libation bowl.

The early Regency ceremonies were closely scripted, but the script for this ceremony has not, so far as we know, survived. Instruction 8 in the draft outline, ‘Side Amber Light up’, points to the carefully planned staging that Ron and George went in for at this time. The Regency gradually moved away from this kind of thing towards a much more fluid, spontaneous kind of event.

About

Ronald ‘Chalky’ White (1924–1998) was an artist, poet and mystic. He was a prominent figure in the Pagan revival of the 1960s and 70s. In 1966 he and his friend George Winter founded the Regency, a group which held regular public ceremonies to observe the festivals of the seasons. This website has been set up to celebrate his life and work.